The SAAF Forum

Was at Hout Bay on Saturday and noticed there are still quite a few ex-Navy vessels there all privately owned.

Circe (ex-R9 Crashboat) on the hard in a boatyard. Minus shafs, props and very derelict.
Another one also a crashboat was stored behind her and next to this boat was the superstructure off the Rijger.

Rijger - Ford Class Defence Boat doublebanked on a rusted trawler completely derelict and minus superstructure.
Oosterland - Ford Class Defence Boat - doublebanked outboard of Rijger. Blue hull and white upperworks partially converted into a pleasure craft.

Venture - exHDML now in used as a luxury yacht.

Windward II rumoured to be there but not seen.

Very interesting!

wow thanks C130!
always wondered whre those crahsboats dissapeared to!

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Roshan Bachan

Well Circe and R9 probably won't last much longer. Trouble is where do you send such a vessel to be preserved.

Does anyone know if the Oosterland arrived there under her own power?

Guy Ellis worked very hard to try and interest the SAAF museum in preserving the Zest which was laid up in Simon's Town in the early 2000s. As far as I know he failed to do so - just the cost of transporting the thing to Ysterplaat would have been prohibitive. Crashboats were always the Cinderellas of the SADF. Although the navy took them over in 1969 the naval museum in Simon's Town has absolutely nothing to show they ever existed. Not even a SAS Flamingo badge. Back in the 1980s I gave Ron Bussio a whole lot of documentation, newspaper clippings, photographs taken by Venn, etc. I understand they never found anywhere to put them in the SAAF Museum. When Guy went looking for the stuff in 2000 (or so) there was no trace of it. I am only glad I never parted with my hull model of the Krogerwerft boats or that would also be lost.

Transport can always be arranged - I work in the heavy haulage industry. Trouble is a crashboat would need to earn its keep and cannot see that happening. Maybe R9 or the other one lasts a bit longer then plinth it nearby.

The Wheatcroft Collection,this private collection has one very large collection of Armoured vehicles.
But he is busy preserving/restoring a German S-Boot, commonly called E-Boat which has its own web site http://www.s130.co.uk

For the whole collection see
http://www.wheatcroftcollection.com/home.html

Impressive websites - thanks for sharing!

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https://www.flickr.com/photos/tallyho2015/albums

Found this old photo, is this one of the crashboats?

http://www.kapstadt.de/fotos/historisches/saaf-pilot-training-1950-347/#joomimg

No. That's an HDML - Harbour Defence Motor Launch. 12 were built in South Africa during the 2nd world war, one or two still exist in private hands. Other than one British Power Boat launch all the SAAF crashboats were Miami 63 footers built by Miami Shipbuilding Corporation.
http://www.cnrs-scrn.org/northern_mariner/vol18/tnm_18_3-4_173-184.pdf
Gives an interesting overview.

For those that have not seen it, a brief history of SAAF crashboats can be found at http://www.saairforce.co.za/the-airforc ... crashboats

wow, thanks for sharing that Dean!
Very useful info

So is Zest an ex Miami class vessel?

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Roshan Bachan

Zest in Simon's Town circa 2001.

cant see the pic, but i take it she is lol

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Roshan Bachan

There is a 19 to 1 chance on that. Of the 20 SAAF WW2 crashboats 19 were Miamis. Only the very first, R0, was a British Power Boat ASRL. The 19 Miamis were R1 to R20 - there never was an R13. Superstitious lot.

Taken I think on the 4.1.93 Rijger arriving under tow at Hout Bay, we saw the towing vessel, but cant recall the name, from Chapmans Peak doing the towing job stern first, and I have wondered if they did that all the way from Simons Town!